They'll be playing a funeral dirge if McCryptkeeper and GollyGirl take the White House.

Put your palette down, Picasso, and vote. But first check out this handy voting guide compiled by the nonpartisan Americans for the Arts Action Fund. The verdict? The contrast between the candidates’ positions on issues such as arts education and NEA funding are as stark as the Rothko Chapel.

Here are the highlights:

Sen. Barack Obama endorses music and arts programs in schools. He supports the National Endowment for the Arts and says his health care proposals would make it easier for starving artist types to live long, healthy lives instead of expiring, all La Boheme-like, in filthy garrets.

Sen. John McCain only supports arts education in schools when such instruction does not impede the rote memorization and testing drills required by No Child Left Behind. In other words, never. The senator from Arizona also voted nine times to cut the NEA budget.

Artists as a rule don’t pay much attention to the tax code, even though many of them are self-employed and responsible for their own accounting. A bill co-sponsored by Obama earlier this year would allow artists to deduct the full market value of work donated to museums or other cultural institutions instead of just the cost of materials. The bill has 31 sponsors from both parties. None of them are John McCain.

You can find the full report online at www.artsvote.org.